2,000 dead cattle rot on Texas feedlot

SUDAN, Texas, July 2 (UPI) -- Texas has fined a feedlot nearly $6,000 for letting 2,000 dead cattle pile up and decompose, attracting flies and creating a stench, officials said.

The Sudan Feedyard Inc. of Sudan, Texas, was given until July 26 to remove the animal carcasses, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said.

The owner of the feedlot 50 miles northwest of Lubbock, Texas, was originally fined more than $7,000 last week after state inspectors discovered the health violations through a tip.

But the state let D.K. Gabel pay a reduced fine of $5,824 for his cooperation in the matter, officials said.

The feedlot was listed as having an "average" compliance record with the state and no previous major violations, the Houston Chronicle reported.

State law specifies carcasses must be collected within 24 hours and disposed of within three days of death by turning the bodies into compost or having them removed by a professional service.

The commission report did not specify how long the carcasses had been accumulating.

Proper removal of carcasses in the state's West Texas region is generally easy because of the large number of disposal companies, Ben Weinheimer, an agricultural engineer with the Texas Cattle Feeders Association in Amarillo, Texas, told the Chronicle.

He called the volume of animals found at the Sudan site surprising.